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INTENTION : |
We pray that the international community may commit in a concrete way to ensuring the abolition of torture and guarantee support to victims and their families.
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No Excuses for Torture
Catholic teaching on torture is straightforward: Torture is fundamentally incompatible with the dignity of the human person, and its practice is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances. On the other hand, historically and existentially, the Catholic Church has more than a passing acquaintance with torture.
Leaders and members of the Church have been both victims and perpetrators. The Church looks to the cross of Christ and to the witness of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries in whose severe sufferings it finds meaning and inspiration.
At the time of the Inquisition and in many other historical circumstances, however, the Church leaders have tolerated, and even supported the use of torture to achieve so-called higher purposes.
One of the great strength S of the Catholic tradition is the Church's ability, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to repent of past errors and to seek the fullness of God's truth-a truth fully revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ but grasped only partially in each age by the sons and daughters of the Church.
Ours is a Church of both saints and sinners, a dualism that offers insight into a complex ethical problem like the use of torture. Torture is an issue of particular concern today because of ethically questionable practices tolerated under the exigencies of the "global war on terror."
These practices include waterboarding, simulated drowning, "extreme rendition," the capture, detention and deportation of terror suspects, often to nations where torture is common.
A Threat to Human Dignity
The basis for the Church's current total rejection of torture is its teaching of the life and dignity of the human person. The human person is created in the image of God. In Christ, all are offered redemption without exception.
In Catholic teaching, human dignity does not come from any human quality or accomplishment; it comes from God. For this reason, the Catechism teaches, "It is also blasphemous to use God's name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death" (No. 2148).
The Catechism later declares: "Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and human dignity" (No. 2298).
The use of torture dishonours the Creator, in whose image every human person is created, and disfigures the person worthy of respect. In Catholic teaching, there is more than one victim of torture. There is, of course, a profound concern for the immediate victim of torture, whose body and mind suffer assault. But the Church is also concerned for the human dignity of the perpetrator of torture, who is debased by the act itself.
This is why the Catechism, which calls for the abolition of torture, also asks Catholics to "pray for the victims and their tormentors."
Stephen M. Colecchi - America Magazine
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